The NFC North is barreling toward something the NFL has almost never seen: a division where every team can finish with 10 wins.
That kind of setup has been nearly impossible in league history. No division has ever had its last-place team reach 10 wins.
The NFC North came close last year, when the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions all finished with nine. The 2023 Cincinnati Bengals also finished last at 9-8 and had chances to get to 10, but that’s about as close as the league has come.
Before 2002, the NFL’s five-team divisions made the idea basically out of reach, and the 17-game schedule introduced in 2021 has only made this kind of outcome more realistic.
This year’s NFC North has the right ingredients. As week 10 arrives, all four teams have at least six wins, and none of them looks like a pushover.
The Lions have an excellent offense, and their defense has taken a step forward with players such as safety Brian Branch getting healthy. The Vikings boast a truly elite defense and have brought quarterback Kirk Cousins back for the stretch run.
The Bears and Packers have both been strong on both sides of the ball, with Green Bay gradually repairing its offensive line and Chicago adding defensive lineman Jeffrey Simmons to bolster its defense. In other words, these teams are going to keep stacking wins.
A simple projection of the rest of the season points in the same direction. In that simulation, every team in the division finishes with 10 wins in 30% of the outcomes.
Every team gets to 11 in almost 5%. It is even mathematically possible for all four to land on 12, though that would be extremely unlikely.
The Bears are the easiest place to start. They already have seven wins, and even with tough matchups against Buffalo and Jacksonville, games against the Saints and Dolphins should get them to nine. From there, they would need just one more division win out of their four remaining games, which include two against Detroit and one each against Minnesota and Green Bay.
Minnesota has six wins banked and still has the Commanders, Jets, Falcons and Panthers on the schedule. That alone could be enough to get them to 10. On top of that, the Vikings still have three division games left, one against each NFC North rival, plus a difficult game against the 49ers.
Detroit also sits at six wins and has a run of non-division games against the Giants, Titans, Falcons, Buccaneers and Patriots, a group that ranges from “meh” to “atrocious.” Even if the Lions stumble in four of those, they still have two games against the Bears and one each against the Vikings and Packers.
Green Bay is in the same position with six wins, and the Packers’ remaining slate gives them plenty of chances to keep pace. They get the Rams without Davante Adams or Puka Nacua, along with the Saints, Dolphins and Texans, plus a tough matchup with the Bills. They also still have Minnesota, in Kirk Cousins’ first game back, and one more game apiece against Chicago and Detroit.
The division’s in-house games matter just as much as the softer matchups. Someone has to win those, and that is part of why the 10-win scenario looks so real.
Even in a fairly negative setup for Green Bay, the path is still there. If the Bears and Lions split their remaining division games at 2-2, the Vikings go 2-1, and the Packers finish 1-2, then before the non-division games are even counted the Bears would be 9-4, the Lions 8-5, the Vikings 8-3 and the Packers 7-5.
That leaves Green Bay still needing only three wins from New Orleans, Miami, Houston, an undermanned Rams team and Buffalo. That is a very manageable ask.
And if Chicago drops another division game or two, that only helps the Packers, Lions and Vikings, with the Bears still holding a one-game lead.
So unless the whole thing goes sideways, this looks very likely to happen. The Packers are stuck in one of the strongest divisions football has ever seen, and that could produce a rare finish where everybody in the NFC North clears 10 wins.
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